


what was left behind

by lovevalley45



Category: DC's Legends of Tomorrow (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Character Turned Into a Ghost, Gen, Post-Season/Series 04, Referenced Nate/Zari, Temporal Bullshit
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-12
Updated: 2019-11-12
Packaged: 2021-01-29 11:33:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,696
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21409504
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lovevalley45/pseuds/lovevalley45
Summary: Zari woke up.
Kudos: 15





	what was left behind

**Author's Note:**

> hey so i never stop making weird AUs at 2 am apparently (https://lovevalley45.tumblr.com/post/188924827961/god-i-just-thought-of-a-stupid-au-thought-fuckin)
> 
> and i had a lot of free time on my hands. so here you go. yeah.

i.

Zari woke up. 

Well, waking up was the best way to describe it. She hadn’t been asleep a second, a minute, an hour ago but she was here now. One moment she’d been crying in Nate’s arms, now she was wherever  _ here _ was.

She pushed herself up on her elbows. The rug under her had once been plush, but was just a little matted. In the fireplace, flames warmed her face. Somewhere above her, violin music drifted down. Too nice to be a simulation from Gideon, she thought. But it wouldn’t have surprised her.

With a groan, she stood up. Her legs felt like jelly, and she steadied herself against the mantle. Well, tried to. Her hand nearly went through the wood at first. Zari took a look at her hands. They weren’t invisible, but they definitely weren’t solid. Like a hologram, maybe.

Weird.

The house was nice, all polished wood and cozy furniture. Gashes scarred some of the couches, stitched up with bright pink thread. She wandered the halls, looking at the pictures on the wall. One of a green dragon. One of her brother. A yellow house with her parents in front. And one with someone who looked very-

“Who the hell are you?” she heard a familiar voice say. 

Zari turned around and saw herself. Not a perfect mirror, no, far from that. The ends of her hair were dyed blonde, held in place by curlers as she stood in a long pink robe. In her right hand she wielded a violin bow, the other hand gripping the instrument. 

“I’ll call the police,” her double threatened. “How did you get in?”

She raised her hands up. “Hey. I, uh, was just on my way out.” It was a shitty lie, and they both knew it. Can’t lie to another version of yourself, Z, she said to herself. “Look, let’s just-”

Zari didn’t feel the bow hit her face, just a weird sensation as it passed through her. 

“What the hell?” the other her muttered (maybe she needed to come up with some way to address her, she figured), looking at her bow. Her look of shock soon morphed into a tired face she knew quite well. “Don’t tell me. This has something to do with Behrad, doesn’t it?”

She shrugged. “Depends on what you think he did.”

Z2 (what? it was better than nothing) let her bow fall to her side, walking down the hall. “Some time travel bullshit.”

Well, that meant he was with the Legends. Which was as reassuring as it was a little frightening to think of. God, in this timeline, was he dating Nate instead? How the fuck did that work? 

Then she realized that Z2 was already far down the hall. Zari hurried to keep up, saying “Yeah, but it was more my fault. I guess you’re like- me? From another timeline?”

“I don’t think I would do something that stupid,” Z2 casually retorted. “Would you?”

Which was a low blow, but quite valid. “I didn’t think I’d end up as a- what am I?”

“You’re a ghost.”

Zari didn’t like that word.  _ Ghost _ meant dead, deceased, gone to the world. She hadn’t died, not really. 

Instead, she tried something else. She stopped dead in her tracks and looked up to the ceiling to say, “Gideon, you better stop fucking with me.”

Silence. She never thought she’d miss that snarky AI so much. 

Z2 cleared her throat. “If you’re done talking to the ceiling, I’m going to finish my violin practice.”

With that, she left, leaving Zari alone with her thoughts.

She still wasn’t going to call herself a ghost. 

ii.

Zari can’t sleep. She doesn’t need sleep.

Can’t eat. Doesn’t need to eat. 

But what she can do is this - bug Z2.

“When was the last time you ate?” Zari asked, taking a book off the shelf. She’s getting a better grip (ha!) on her tangibility, what she can or can’t touch. Books - easy.

Z2 sighed. She didn’t look up from her laptop, editing some video. Because she made videos. “I ate two hours ago. I had an apple.”

“I mean an actual meal.” She sat down on the couch, where Mithra was resting. He could see her, which was weird to wrap her head around. No one else could, except for the dragon and Z2. “Fruit doesn’t count as lunch.”

“For someone who doesn’t eat at all, you’re very critical of my eating habits,” Z2 said. 

“Yeah, because I can’t eat. And it fucking sucks.” Zari scratched the top of Mithra’s head. “Get yourself a sandwich or something.”

With another, more dramatic sigh, Z2 saved her file and closed her laptop. “Fine. She got up from her desk and pointed a finger at her. “Don’t go anywhere.” 

“Nowhere I  _ can  _ go, but thanks for the consideration,” Zari said, cracking open the book. As she left, she added, “And drink some water!”

Z2’s grateful reply was flipping her the bird. Well, it wasn’t her responsibility anyways.

iii.

Inside the house, Zari has free reign. She can go into the backyard with Mithra, sit in the office, lay down in the guest bedroom and pretend to sleep. 

As soon as Z2 goes out, though, suddenly she’s restricted. Like a stupid leash, Zari finds herself wherever she is. 

They’ve gone out to film a video - well, Z2 went out. Zari was stuck along for the journey. She was invisible to the rest of the people in the restaurant, sitting on a table behind her counterpart. 

“Remember, like and subscribe!” Z2 gave the camera one last smile.

Zari clapped sarcastically. “Bravo, bravo.” 

In the viewfinder, Z2’s eye twitched for a moment. She turned off the camera and gave her the stink eye. As much as they couldn’t see her, no one else could hear her either. It was like being dead - almost.

“Can I make a suggestion? How about a video proving spirits exist?” Zari said, swinging her legs. “You could give me a whiteboard and I could answer questions, I bet your subscriber count would double.”

Z2 gave her a look that could roughly translate to  _ if I could tell you off and not look like I was losing my marbles, I fucking would _ before going back to packing up her stuff. Her newest boyfriend, a dude named Blake, was texting instead of helping. At least she used to have good taste in guys.

Zari technically wasn’t supposed to do anything that could be filed under paranormal activity in public. But sometimes, a little interference from beyond was helpful. There really weren’t a lot of other people to notice anyways. She picked up a spoon (because she was trying to be a little nice) and casually chucked it at the back of his head.

Blake rubbed the back of his head in confusion. “Did someone just throw something at me?”

Trying to bit back a smile, Z2 replied innocently, “I didn’t see anything.”

“Dump him,” Zari said loudly. 

Maybe she wasn’t as much of a ‘relationship expert’ as Sara, but she tried her best.

iv.

There were times she missed the team.

Well, not times. They were constant. She missed Nate, she missed Sara and Charlie, she missed Ray and Mick. Hell, she even missed John. But sometimes it was worse, crushing down on her.

Z2 always said she looked different those days, sadder. Zari thought she looked the same, still in the outfit she wore to Heyworld.

“You look like you’ve been crying,” she’d said. “And… spookier.”

Those days, she got angry. She knocked things over, she went outside to scream until her lungs hurt. She didn’t feel like herself. 

Maybe spooky was the right word.

It was Halloween. Usually a holiday for candy and dressing up, except Zari could do neither of these. She thought of a little boy in the 80s, looking for friends, and a woman who was starting to remember how nice it was to have them. 

God, she missed them that night. 

Z2 had went to a party where everyone was drunk except for the two of them. She flirted with some cute blonde as Zari sulked in the corner. 

Next to her, someone slipped a pill inside a red Solo cup. Someone inside her, the same anger that rose up in Salem, lit up inside her. The man was about to offer it to his date when-

“Oh no,” she said. The cup had splashed all over his shirt, drenching his stupid costume. It was what he deserved, right? No one got hurt, she was safe from this asshole.

_ No woman should suffer at the hands of men _ , Sara had said once. She’d got mad at Zari for a lot of things, a lot of times she’d done something she wasn’t supposed to. 

But right now, there was no captain to tell her she did the right thing or not. She didn’t need someone to guide her moral compass, yet she missed her voice. 

_ What would Sara say? _ , she thought for a moment.

It was a stupid question. They didn’t remember her. 

Zari wished she could cry. 

v.

What Z2 called her ‘sulky’ days were getting closer together. 

It wasn’t sulking. It was the realization that no one remembered you hitting her over and over again like a truck. And it fucking sucked. 

Zari didn’t knock things over anymore. She locked herself in the guest bedroom and stared out the window, wondering what they were doing without her. 

She was so, so tired. 

Z2 knocked on the door. “I’m filming something.”

“And?” Zari called back. 

“I need you.”

She didn’t show up on camera, but her whiteboard did. Z2 read out questions about being a ghost -  **NOT A GHOST** , she wrote out in huge letters - which she tried her best to answer. 

Or at least come up with a snarky reply to.

The comments were abuzz with theories, wondering how Z2 had pulled off such a prank. Some believed she was real, though. 

_ bfu_stan_9177: first dragons, now ghosts?? _

_ spooooopy: more ghost content! _

“Guess you’re popular, huh?” Z2 joked. 

“Yeah,” Zari replied. “Guess I am.”

_ Ghost. Ghost. Ghost. _

She screamed in the backyard. Her lungs didn’t hurt, her throat didn’t burn. It felt empty. 

** _Not_ ** _ a ghost.  _

vi.

Behrad visited.

It was a rare occurrence.

Zari had thought she could get away with lounging in the living room when he came over, but the day was to be full of surprises.

“Z,” he asked Z2, “What the fuck?”

“Behrad, meet Zari 1.0.” It was a joke at first, but it was an adequate way to describe them.

Zari 1.0, the prototype.

Zari 2.0, the upgrade.

But Zari hated being called a prototype. 

“Hey,” she said, waving. “Long time, no see.”

He looked between his sister and his not-sister. “Once more - what the  _ fuck _ ?”

It was a fair reaction.

vii.

Stepping onto the ship again was weird.

Suddenly everyone could see her, though they didn’t quite know how to react. They didn’t remember her.

It hurt as much as she suspected.

Zari didn’t see Nate, which hurt more than anything. 

“He’s busy,” Sara said when she asked. “Check the library.”

She doesn’t need to drag Z2 to come along with her. The door is open, loud music pouring out into the hall.

God, she’s missed him. She realized that before she even saw him. 

“Hey,” she said, leaning in the doorway. “Remember me?”

There’s no reason to ask. His answer is going to be-

“You.” He stood up, looking at her with wide eyes. “How do I know you?”

There’s a lot of things Zari thinks are stupid. Fate is one of them.

Maybe it isn’t that stupid.

viii.

“It’s a temporal thing,” Nate explained to the team. “We think.”

Ray nodded. “When we changed the timeline in Heyworld, it was a big enough change that the wave of temporal energy didn’t just wash over her-”

“I was… more or less, absorbed in it,” Zari finished. Absorbed was a nice way of saying it. “And I ended up with myself.”

Z2 looked like she didn’t want to be any part of this conversation. She and Behrad were standing a strategic five feet away from each other, refusing to look at each other. 

“Cool. How do we fix it?” she asked.

“We go back,” Nate said. There was no need to further explain what going back meant.

Bye-bye, baby bro. Bye-bye, nice house in 2044. Bye-bye, Zari 2.0.

“I’d rather stay a ghost,” Zari whispered.

ix.

They didn’t go back.

Zari sat in her guest bedroom, staring out the window.

“Why didn’t you do it?” Z2 had asked her.

“I never told you what happened, did I?” she said. 

“You never told me anything.”

“That was a good thing,” Zari told her, before leaving. 

She thought of how Nate had recognized her, dreaming of her. Of how she tried to kiss him, how they’d laughed because it was cold and weird.

How much she still missed him, how much she wished she could go back.

But she couldn’t.

Zari had fought so hard to save her brother, and when she thought it was hopeless, she was given a chance. Who would she be if she took that chance away, put them right back where they started?

Z2 wouldn’t understand. There were no words that were right to describe how it felt to know you would be responsible for your brother’s death, again.

After all, she’d die too. The Zari that had grown up in an era of peace, became a vlogger with a pet dragon and had terrible taste in guys sometimes, gone. 

She’d miss her too.

x.

Zari gets roped into another video.

She answered questions again, with her same whiteboard. Most of them were from fans, but Z2 asked one question:

“What is your biggest regret?”

There wasn’t many options. She could name her biggest off the top of her head. Then again, this wasn’t something for YouTube.

_ Letting Behrad die _ , she thought.

**Almost marrying some dude with 1000 wives, ** she wrote.

She was learning some lessons from herself, like this - sometimes the truth is not for camera. 

Later that night, she told Z2 the truth - everything about ARGUS, the raid, her time with the team. It hurt a lot less than she thought it would.

That wasn’t to say it didn’t hurt at all.

xi.

Time broke. Again.

Some business with these Time Guardian assholes, apparently, who weren’t very pleased with the Legends’ interference.

** _This was not supposed to happen_ ** , they rumbled, in a voice as old as time itself.

Zari felt it. It had echoed through the temporal stream and through her as well.

Oh no, she thought.

xii.

Zari woke up.

She hadn’t been able to sleep for a year. 

Her face was smushed against the cold metal of the bridge, feeling vibrations of people walking in. Why was she on the Waverider?

“Z?” a familiar voice asked. “Are you okay?”

With a hand that was suddenly solid, she pushed herself up to see who was talking. Nate had knelt down beside her, looking concerned.

“What happened?” she asked weakly. 

He looked back at Sara, who had a solemn look on her face. “Something restored the timeline.”

Zari let him help her up, feeling terribly dizzy. She was a person again, more than a ghost. The whole thing was a little disorienting.

“Can I get something to eat?” she finally asked.

xiii.

Things didn’t go back to normal. They never could.

After one year, one month, and approximately eight days, Zari was a member of the Legends again. She was human again.

She missed the glimpse of the life she’d had. She missed Z2, her asshole boyfriends, Mithra.

But she noticed something. A voice that seemed distant, a familiar one. Not quite hers, with just a touch of snobbishness. It only seemed right that after all that time bugging her, Z2 would finally get hers in the end.

“Don’t forget to eat,” Z2 said. “Drink some water. Practice violin.”

“Thanks, Z,” Zari replied with a smile.

Well, things had never been normal with the Legends.

**Author's Note:**

> honestly like? idk what this was. but if u like, leave a kudo or a comment
> 
> seriously s5 needs to come around so i can think of good ideas again,,,,,, only two months and nine days folks. start the fucking countdown.


End file.
